simmonds@demon.siemens.com (Tom Simmonds) (01/19/91)
> tp0x+@CS.CMU.EDU (Thomas Price) >Subject: Re: Are Zen enlightened people superior? >Can we even say that it is preferable to study Zen? Or was your point that >those who have studied it should not be concerned with concepts of better >or worse? I suppose then that those who have not studied it do well to >conceive of it as "better", and to be spurred on to studying it. If, though, >Zen masters are not concerned with concepts of better or worse, can they >encourage unenlightened people to study Zen? How then do they manage to >communicate the benefits of enlightenment to unenlightened people if, being >enlightened themselves, considerations of "benefit" or "loss" are alien to >them? I see your point, and I have to admit that the issue seems somewhat paradoxical to me as well. Paradox seems to be the usual result of trying to deal with Zen on a rational level. I don't think I can provide a clear resolution of the paradox, but I do have some thoughts about it. I hope you don't mind if I ramble a little and see where it takes me. Please bear in mind that I am not an "expert" (if there is such a thing) on the topic of Zen, although I have read alot and I do practice Zen meditation, and I have never been to a zendo. Your comment that those who have not studied zen might do well to conceive of enlightenment as "better" leads me to the question: What motivates people to pursue enlightenment in the first place? In my own case, I attribute it to a restless mind, plagued and confused by questions such as "What am I?", "What is the nature of the universe?", "What is my relation to everything else?", "What am I doing HERE?", "What SHOULD I be doing?", "What will happen to me when I die?", etc. These kinds of questions have always been important to me and have been the motivation for much of what I have done in my life. Having studied a reasonable amount of science and western philosophy without finding anything that even approaches a satisfactory answer to those kinds of questions, and having reached the conclusion that rationality is not equipped to answer them, the intuitive, experiential approach of Zen seems to me to offer the best chance of settling those issues and putting an end to my restlessness. If I can generalize (assuming that I'm not a unique case), then the desire for enlightenment is the result of a restless and confused mind. It is the motivation that drives a person to pursue enlightenment as a goal. As you said, enlightenment is perceived as being better than restlessness. Some of the Zen texts make quite a big deal of the need for students to develop an intense desire for enlightenment that will drive them toward it. So, if one is persistent, the restless dissatisfaction and desire lead to a doorway. Ironically, however, the desire that brings you there must be abandoned in order to pass through. Once through, and on the other side, enlightenment is no longer perceived as "better". The restlessness and the pursuit of goals is left behind, and one becomes Living Reality itself - that which is beyond rational explanation. The old way of thinking is abandoned, and the old questions become irrelevant. Reality is reality whether you recognize it or not; and one feels that it has been there all along, that Living Reality has always been just what it is, even in the restlessness and confusion. Reality hasn't changed, nothing real has become "better". All that has happened is that the conceptual rats-nest has been thrown away; the wild-goose-chase quest to reduce experiential reality to a set of ideas has been abandoned. So much for the seekers. So, then, what motivates enlightened Zen Masters to encourage and teach others? Why is there so much emphasis on the vows to attain enlightenment and to enlighten all sentient beings? There is an enigmatic passage in the Vajraccheddika (Diamond Sutra), I think, in which the Buddha is quoted as saying that "Innumerable beings... are all liberated [by the Tathagata]...Although innumerable beings are thus liberated, there are in reality no such beings which are liberated. Why? Because [the Tathagata] does not cherish an idea of form, or of an ego, a person, a being and a soul." (my paraphrase from memory may not be exactly accurate, but it's pretty close, and I don't think I've corrupted the meaning). The Buddha seems to have been aware of the paradox, but no rational resolution of it is offerred. In the context of the rest of the sutra, there is a clear suggestion that when one is enlightened he/she perceives all sentient beings as enlightened. The Buddha says, in effect, that by his enlightenment all sentient beings are instantly liberated. So the question of why an enlightened Master would bother to teach others remains unanswered. If, as the sutra says, all sentient beings are already in Nirvana, and are by nature perfectly free and undefiled, why did the Buddha bother to say a single word? Perhaps the key is in the Buddhist notion of Mahakaruna, or great compassionate heart, which is supposed to be a characteristic of all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. I think it's a matter of offering relief to the restless and confused. Perhaps they are only trying to help us to throw away the garbage in our minds so we can accept the reality that already IS. We are already perfect, from their point of view, but our delusion prevents us from knowing it; and therefore we suffer from restlessness and confusion. What the Masters are doing, in their way, is pointing at our "true nature" and saying "Look!" Perhaps they perceive the suffering of restlessness as unnecessary, and are moved to teach by love and compassion, rather than a rational decision that they "should" teach. Maybe it's the confusion and the desire on the part of the student that motivates the teacher, rather than any desire on the teacher's part. In the Diamond Sutra, the Buddha instructs the Bodhisattvas to practice charity without cherishing any idea of form or merit. So, the practice of charity is not to be thought of as something "good". My interpretation of this is that all the actions of a Bodhisattva, including charity, are to be as egoless, free-flowing and natural as the falling of a leaf. While these considerations seem to provide some partial understanding of why the Masters teach, it doesn't seem to answer all the questions. It's still not clear to me how one can practice charity without some kind of discrimination of what is "good". I also find it difficult to conceive of love and compassion without the idea of something or someone toward which it is felt, or without a preferential attachment to "happiness" as opposed to restlessness. But then, I'm not a Bodhisattva. -- (((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((( ))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))tom simmonds)))))))))))))))))))) (((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((( ))))))) "True beauty consists in purity of heart." - Mahatma Gandhi ))))))))